Farmers pry out stones
From our royal pyramid,
Build a fold for goats.

*

What fallen hero
Lies beneath the broken cairn
Where young ravens cry?

*

“For my only love,”
Inside the golden ring
Dropped into a well.

*

A gate in rubble,
With words above the lintel:
"Justice for us all."

*

On the cavern wall,
Red in crumbling pigment
The handprint of a child.

* * *

Anna Sykora has been an attorney in New York and teacher of English in Germany, where she resides with her patient husband and three Norwegian Forest cats. Writing is her joy and to date she has placed 122 tales and 267 poems in the small press. Motto: eat your rejections like pretzels.